Wednesday Reading: Luke 16 1-12
 
Key Verse: Luke 16 10
10  He who is faithful in the least is also faithful in much. And he who is unjust in the least is also unjust in much.
 
Devotion:
Being a Christian does not mean that we have to separate ourselves from the world – without worldly interactions we would not be able to spread God's Word. Equally, we should not get caught up in the world... As we grow in Christ we come to the realisation that we are living a life that God has given to us. Everything that we have is allowed by God or given to us by God. You could say that we are stewards of God's goods whilst we are here. In that respect, we have to take good care of His goods.

 

We cannot go through life doing what we want and then finally finding out, like this steward did, that God is not impressed with what we have done with His goods. We need to make sure that we live according to His will so that we will be able to know what to do with what He has given us. This steward did not have a good handle on his masters accounts even though he was put in charge of them. Being unjust in just one place like this meant that his master could not have confidence in any of his dealings. There was nothing left but to confront him.

 

Now, unlike the actions of this steward, God does not want us to go out and defraud Him at every opportunity! But God does want us to go out there! If we do not befriend people of this world, then we will not be able to allow them to see how we live for Christ. We can learn a lot of things from people of this world... Just because we are Christians does not mean that we know everything! We can learn so much from people around us and we can use that knowledge to continue to take good care of our lot from God. Whilst we are doing that we can still exercise our faith in Christ, we don't have to conform to this world... just live in it...

 

Points to Ponder:
How much do you own?
 
What would you write if you had to give a written account of your life for God?

Tuesday Reading: Luke 12 15-21
 
Key Verse: Luke 12 21
21  So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.
 
Devotion:
The worst thing that we could try to exaggerate is our spiritual riches based upon what we have here on earth! No matter how rich we are here on earth, it is not a measuring stick for how rich we will be in heaven. Judging how pleased God is with us by looking at  the earthly riches we have is just folly; they are opposite sides of the coin.

 

Working for earthly riches will make us comfortable and will give us a good life whilst here on earth, but what we do with our riches may well break us down spiritually. Coveting what we have here on earth will lead our hearts away from God and will weaken us spiritually – why else would God list that as one of the ten commandments! Our lives must not be measured by what we posses, but how we use it. If we are going to let our riches guide us or control us, then we have left the path with God and are now walking the path of covetousness. Just like the man in this parable, we will quickly loose our way.

 

We do not know what God has in store for us. We do not know His plan. How then are we to be ready if we are going to leave His world behind and seek our own covetous world instead? How are we going to be prepared if we ignore His work? God has the perfect plan and we seem to do nothing more than spoil it because of our greedy eyes. We do not stick with the plan but run with our own because we think we can see a great future ahead through what we are doing – our problem being that that which we see, may well not come to pass because we are not the ones in control. You only have to have an accident to realise that we are not fully in control, but remembering the steps that took us towards that accident is what we often forget.

 

God wants us to be prepared for His plan in our lives. To do that we have to be close to His will. To do that we need to put His will first and not our own...

 

Points to Ponder:
What would be your ideal job in life?
 
How much would you use it to glorify God?

Monday Reading: Proverbs 27 1-2
 
Key Verse: Proverbs 27 2
2  Let another man praise you, and not your mouth; a stranger, and not your lips.
 
Devotion:
It is very easy to get carried away when describing yourself, whether you over-exaggerate a few things or just plain lie about your abilities, we all seem to get caught up in a bit of self-indulgent self-praise! One of the ten commandments is not to bear false witness against your neighbour – but what about false witness against yourself? When we lift up ourselves in praise we will not stop at what others see in ourselves but continue in expanding on things that others will not see in us. We continue to praise ourselves with more gusto than any advertising company could – because we think we know our own abilities.

 

We think we know what we are capable of even if we have never actually had to face up to the things that we say we can do. We assume that we are able to do things that we have never faced up to. We think that we are better than we are. We get so carried away with our thoughts that we even convince ourselves that we are better than we actually are. When we are then faced with something that stumps us we get so despondent that we have been stumped with something we should be able to do that we start breaking down the walls of self belief that we should have in the abilities that we have already proven we have.

 

This sort of thing happens, not just in our work and school lives, but in our spiritual lives. We assume that because we have a knowledge of some of the stories in the bible, that we have a good knowledge of everything. We then get faced with a simple fact that we have not come across and we get stumped. We then start to doubt everything we have learned... This sort of position can take quite a while to get out of... What we need to do in the first place is recognise that we will be students for the rest of our lives and work to that extent. There is no way we are going to know what Christ has in His mind, but we can depend on Him because we know He is perfect. We do not know what is going to happen tomorrow, but we sure can depend on The One that does know!

 

Points to Ponder:
What is your honest opinion of yourself?
 
Is that what you admit to God?

Sunday Reading: 2 Corinthians 12 6-10
 
Key Verse: 2 Corinthians 12 9
9  And He said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may overshadow me.
 
Devotion:
How many times have you asked God to get rid of something in your life and are still wondering if He will ever grant your wish? Or maybe you thought you had so much more potential than you have shown but cannot seem to ever get there... Well, just maybe, we look at things in the wrong way. Maybe we are looking at our own strengths and weaknesses and how the affect our own lives and forgetting about how they interact with everyone else around us. Maybe we are just being selfish...

 

There are those that will advertise how a bis of selfishness will make a big difference in your life. They will tell you that in order to get a better business, you have to be selfish in some manner so that others will not take advantage of you. Yet our selfish pride will stop us from achieving all manner of things. God has not placed us here to exercise selfishness but to learn to live in brotherly love. He wants us to be able to be humble enough to realise that He is our God and that He is the one in charge of our lives. The longer we try to place ourselves in charge, the longer we will find that we don't get our own way – that's all we will gain from it!

 

But with every good thing in our lives, there seem to be a whole bunch of bad things that come along too. God does not want us to be conceited in our relationship with Him. He wants us to be totally confident in Him, yet does not want us to take Him for granted. He want us to be sure that we are dependant on Him in all things. Watching us beam in pride for doing something right is not  helping us to glorify Him in any manner. Watching us succeed in business and proclaim the right way of doing things is not helping His cause. He will allow things to go wrong to make sure that we do remember just who is in charge and just who needs all the glory in our relationship with Him!

 

Points to Ponder:
Are you dependant on any people in your life?
 
How dependant are you on God?